Improving Our Standard of Living (Wattpad Edition)

Chapter 48: Computers

Computers are everywhere. They include desktops, laptops, game consoles, e-readers, smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, smartglasses, and more. Most other modern electronic devices have computers in them.

Computers are getting faster, more capable, and more energy efficient. They're shrinking in size, allowing us to put them into almost anything. They're becoming more ubiquitous. Things that don't have computers in them today will have computers in them tomorrow. Even the human body.

We're turning the planet into a giant computer composed of smaller ones networked together. Even the space around our planet is increasingly computerized with satellites.

The amount of information new computers can process per second doubles every two years on average. Whatever desktop, laptop, or smartphone you use today, there will be one twice as powerful two years from now. And it will be the same price or cheaper than what you paid for the old computer. (Adjusted for inflation.)

Computer memory is also doubling in performance every two years and getting cheaper.

Internet speeds are rising just as quickly. 5G is estimated to be dozens of times faster than 4G, which was dozens of times faster than 3G, which was dozens of times faster than 2G, which was dozens of times faster than 1G. (This is a bit of an oversimplification, but you get the idea.)

Sometimes it takes as much as four years for a new generation of more powerful computers to enter the market. But when that happens, they are four times more capable on average than the generation before them. That's still an average doubling rate of two years.

Likewise, if it takes six years for a new generation of computers to enter the market, they will be eight times more powerful. (2*2*2=8.) Again, that's a two-year doubling rate in performance, even though it took six years for the next generation to come out.

Game consoles follow this pattern. It takes about six years for a new generation of consoles to enter the market. But when it happens, they have eight times more processing power.

As I mentioned, the internet follows this pattern as well. Rather than doubling consistently in speed every two years, performance increases severalfold every eight years or so. But that's still the equivalent of a doubling in performance every couple years.

In other words, performance of information technology products often comes in spaced-out spurts. But when performance is averaged together across time, the doubling rate is two years.

The doubling of computer performance every two years is often mistaken as Moore's law. But Moore's law only refers to the rate that we've been shrinking transistors—the building blocks of every modern processor.

Computers were doubling in performance every couple years long before the invention of the transistor, and they will after.

The processor is the computer. Most everything else serves a support role. Some components allow us to send and retrieve information to and from the processor. There is also hardware that keeps the processor cool, like the fan and heatsink. And there's memory, which stores information. But the essence of the computer is the processor. That's what performs the calculations. In modern times, the processor is where the transistors are.

If the transistors are smaller, then more of them can be packed onto a processor, allowing the computer to do more calculations per second.

Moore's law refers only to the fact that scientists have been able to shrink transistors down by half every two years for the last few decades. This is the main reason computers have been doubling in performance every two years, while also using less energy. (Smaller transistors are more energy efficient.)